US moves 'to arm' Kurdish forces, as political in-fighting continues in Baghdad

As Kurdish Peshmerga forces reclaim several towns in northern Iraq from
Islamic State fighters, the US says it is increasing weapons supply to
Kurds.

Ex-combatants of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who volunteered again to fight with Kurdish forces against the militants from the Islamic State, take up position near Khazer town near Mosul, northern IraqPhoto: EPA

By Peter Foster, Washington and agencies

3:35PM BST 11 Aug 2014

The Obama administration has begun to directly provide weapons to Kurdish fighters as they push back Islamic State forces in northern Iraq under the cover of US air strikes, US administration officials said on MOnday.

The Peshmerga, as Kurdish forces are known, are to receive arms from US and Iraqi stockpiles as rapidly as possible, a State Department spokeswoman said.

“We’re working with the government of Iraq to increasingly and very quickly get urgently needed arms to the Kurds,” Marie Harf told CNN.

“This includes the Iraqis providing their own weapons from their own stocks, and we’re working to do the same thing from our stocks of weapons that we have.”

The decision to increase the firepower of the Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, comes as the US also said it was exploring plans to evacuate thousands of the Yazidi minority still trapped in the Sinjar mountains in northern Iraq.

“We’re reviewing options for removing the remaining civilians off the mountain,” Ben Rhodes, the deputy US national security adviser told Reuters.

“Kurdish forces are helping, and we’re talking to the (United Nations) and other international partners about how to bring them to a safe space.”

With fighting continuing on the ground in the north, Iraq’s rival political factions continued to spar in Baghdad where forces loyal to prime minister Nouri al-Maliki were deployed on the streets on Sunday after he gave a speech accusing Iraq’s president of acting unconstitutionally.

Mr Maliki, a Shia whose two terms in office saw a deepening of Iraq’s sectarian divisions and who is no longer supported by the US, is struggling to hold on to the Iraqi premiership in the face of mounting opposition, even from Shia factions.

In the latest move, Iraq’s National Alliance parliamentary bloc announced it had chosen Haidar al-Abadi as its nominee for prime minister in place of Mr Maliki. State television showed footage of President Fuad Masum - a Kurd - shaking hands with Mr Abadi and telling him: “I hope you will be successful in forming a broader-based government.”

Mr Abadi is the current first deputy speaker of Iraq’s parliament. He was born in Baghdad in 1952 and holds a PhD from the University of Manchester.

The US is now trying to balance the exercise of hard power in the Iraq’s north to beat back Islamic State forces, in the hope of creating sufficient space for Iraq’s rival Sunni, Shia and Kurdish political factions to form a government and unite against the extremist threat .

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, warned Mr Maliki to maintain calm among the upheaval. “We believe that the government formation process is critical in terms of sustaining the stability and calm in Iraq,” Mr Kerry said on a visit to Australia. “And our hope is that Mr. Maliki will not stir those waters.”

The decision to arm Kurdish fighters - who have until now have not been recipients of the massively expanded US arms shipments to Baghdad in recent months - comes as their fighters take back several northern towns that fell in the Islamic State’s lightning advances last week.

Syrian Kurdish Peshmerga fighters stand guard as displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community settle at a camp in Derike, Syria (AP)

Officials, speaking anonymously to the Associated Press, said the new weapons were not coming via the Pentagon and hinted that the shipments could be organised by via third parties, possibly the CIA, which has performed similar operations in the past.

The officials did not specify what kinds of weapons would be handed to the Kurds who have long wanted independence from Iraq.

Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary who was also in Sydney, said the airstrikes “have been very effective from all the reports that we’ve received on the ground” but declined to detail how or when the US might expand its assistance to Iraq.

“We’re going to continue to support the Iraqi security forces in every way that we can as they request assistance there,” Mr Hagel said during a press conference with Australian Defense Minister David Johnston.

Separately, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, has called on the EU to do more to help the embattled Kurds, sending a letter to the EU foreign affairs supremo Catherine Ashton to do more for the Kurds.

EU ambassadors are due to meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss options for assisting the Kurds and the persecuted religious minorities.

Mr Fabius, who has just returned from a trip to Iraq where he met Kurdish president Massud Barzani, said Barzani had stressed “the urgent need for weapons and ammunition that would allow them to confront and beat the terrorist group Islamic State”.